The decision to become a mother is a multilayered process that is not wholly rational, clear-cut, or conscious. The aim of this study is to present four different stories about the choice of becoming a mother collected from pregnant women living in heterosexual relationships. The women’s stories are explored through the desires and ambivalences of embodied, relational and emotional female subjects. Crucial to the choice of becoming a mother are: first, the timing of motherhood, which is attached to social and cultural narratives concerning ‘good’ mothering and a ‘reasonable’ female life course; second, the ambivalences encountered in choosing to become a mother; and, third, the link between the heterosexual relationship and its quality and the choice of becoming a mother.

A narrative approach to the study of the gendered nature of parenting acknowledges that different kinds of cultural narratives surround the couple relationship and parenting. This narrative study illustrates the process of the gendering of parenthood from the points of view of seven Finnish first-time mothers. The data were obtained from 28 in-depth longitudinal interviews. Two main narratives were found: a turbulent transformation and a smooth transformation narrative. The turbulent transformation narrative demonstrates how the transition to parenthood may lead to biographical disruption in first-time mothers’ lives. The contradictory cultural narratives of intensive mothering and shared parenthood created ambivalence in the women’s identifications with motherhood and negotiation of parenthood with their partner. For these women, traditional, gendered narratives supported narrative reorientation and the construction of a coherent identity as a mother and as a partner for the women. The smooth transformation narrative, in turn, showed that willingness and effort are required from both parties of the couple in order to depart from intensive mothering and to achieve shared parenting.

Objective To compare single and coupled mothers' experiences of time‐based work‐to‐family conflict (WFC) and work‐to‐family positive affective spillover (PAS) in the context of maternal nonstandard work hours. Background Despite having become one of the central topics of work–family research, studies examining the relationship of maternal work schedules and family roles have mainly focused on North American samples or dual‐earner families. Although qualitative studies have highlighted the problems faced by European single mothers in relation to the combination of nonstandard work hours and family life, there are no quantitative or cross‐national comparative studies on the association. Method Using a convenience sample derived from the Families 24/7 survey of Finnish, Dutch, and British mothers with children 12 years of age or younger (N = 1,106), path analysis was carried out to assess the associations of single motherhood, nonstandard work hours, and their interaction with WFC and PAS and to compare the associations between 3 countries. Results The positive association between the amount of nonstandard work hours and WFC was found to be stronger among single mothers than coupled mothers in all 3 countries. However, in Finland, both single and coupled mothers, and in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, only single mothers, experienced higher WFC when the mother worked more during nonstandard hours. In all countries, single mothers experienced less PAS than coupled mothers. Conclusion Dutch and British single mothers who work nonstandard hours experience the combination of multiple roles particularly challenging compared with coupled mothers. In Finland, both single and coupled mothers report high levels of WFC when they work more nonstandard hours; hence, a greater amount of work during nonstandard hours is not an automatic indication of heightened challenges for single mothers alone. Implications When aiming to improve mothers' work–family reconciliation via social and workplace policies, it is important to understand the circumstances of single and coupled mothers in different cultural contexts.

Children's rights and their increasing voice in families have made relations between parents and children more democratic. Despite this, child-parent relationships have been claimed to be relationships between unequals from the perspective of power. Often, power is understood as top-down with parents as wielders of power over their children and children as recipients of parental demands. The generational ordering of relations between children and adults poses the challenge of how to conceptualize power in the child-parent relationship, and how methodologically to study power and children's agency, in particular, from the viewpoint of young children. This study explored in what ways power and young children's agency become visible in power struggles and negotiations in the childparent relationship. The participants were 18 Finnish 4-to 7-year-old children. The data consisted of episodes of challenging situations in the child-parent relationship collected via a multi-method approach. In these episodes, power was related to parental authority and child compliance, but also to the child's possibilities for agency via many forms of resistance and accommodation. Young children's agency can be seen as connected to the opportunity to resist, to participate in the negotiation of power, and so to influence and evoke change in the child-parent relationship.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to particularly focus on lone-mother families, comparing the childcare-related challenges experienced by working lone mothers and coupled mothers in three European countries in the context of a 24/7 economy and non-standard working hours (e.g. evening, night and weekend work). Design/methodology/approach -This study utilises survey data from Finnish, Dutch and British working mothers (n ¼ 1,106) collected as part of the "Families 24/7" research project. Multivariate regression analysis is used to analyse the associations between childcare-related challenges, maternal non-standard working, lone motherhood and country of residence. Findings -The results indicated similar results across the three countries by showing that working lone mothers experience childcare-related challenges more often compared with coupled mothers. Furthermore, an increase in maternal non-standard working associated positively with increased childcare-related challenges in both lone mother and coupled families but lone motherhood did not moderate this association. The findings suggest that, regardless of family form, families in all three countries struggle with childcare arrangements when the mother works during non-standard hours. This possibly relates to the inadequate provision of state-subsidised and flexible formal childcare during non-standard hours and to the country-specific maternal work hours cultures. Originality/value -This study responds to the need for comparative research on the reconciliation of maternal non-standard working and childcare with self-collected data from three European welfare states. The importance of the study is further highlighted by the risks posed to the maintenance of maternal employment and family well-being when reconciliation of work and childcare is unsuccessful, especially in lone-mother families.